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Israel killed at least two Hezbollah fighters in a drone strike on Monday amid warnings that an escalation in fighting with the Lebanese militant group could become more serious than the war in Gaza.
It was the first cross-border attack since a rocket strike blamed on Hezbollah that killed 12 children in the occupied Golan Heights.
Two Israeli drone strikes killed two people and wounded three more. The widely anticipated retaliation comes after Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed a “harsh” response, though Hezbollah denies responsibility for Saturday’s attack.
“The state of Israel will not and cannot let this pass. Our response will come, and it will be harsh,” he said during a visit to the remote town of Majdal Shams, a majority Druze village in a region annexed by Israel from Syria in 1981.
Netanyahu’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, who was with the prime minister for the visit, added that “Hezbollah will pay a price”.
He told grieving families: “The actions will speak for themselves.”
The pair attended a funeral for the 12th child killed as a result of the strike.
Israeli officials have sought to play down their reaction to the strike, saying that Israel wants to hurt Hezbollah but not drag the Middle East into all-out war.
“The estimation is that the response will not lead to an all-out war,” one diplomatic source told Reuters. “That would not be in our interest at this point.”
Asked about the possibility for escalation in the conflict, cabinet office minister Pat McFadden said: “I think this is very serious. Since 7 October last year, we have all been focused on the situation in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.
“We have known that there is this other situation in northern Israel between Hezbollah and Israel, and that has the potential to be a much more serious situation than even the one that we have been watching unfold in Gaza over the last 10 months.”
He added: “We will always argue for Israel's right to defend itself, but we hope in this situation that cooler and calmer heads will prevail and we do not see a full-scale conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.”
Iran’s newly elected president Masoud Pezeshkian said any Israeli attack on Lebanon would have “serious consequences”, Iranian state media quoted him on Monday as telling French president Emmanuel Macron in a phone call. Pezeshkian did not elaborate.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken, in a phone call with Israeli president Isaac Herzog on Monday, emphasised the importance of preventing escalation of the conflict.
The possibility of a wider war between Hezbollah, distinct from the Lebanese government, and Israel has intensified in recent months as the Iran-backed militia continues to fire across the border.
In April, the Israeli military said that it had completed another step in preparing for a possible war along its northern front. In a statement titled “readiness for the transition from defence to offence”, the military said the phase completed centred on logistics “for a broad mobilisation of [Israeli] troops”.
Two months later, in June, Netanyahu and Gallant toured northern Israel’s border with Lebanon and met with military commanders, with the Israeli PM saying that their forces were “determined and committed to the mission of achieving victory, and no less”.
Hezbollah has been continually firing on northern Israel since allies Hamas, also backed by Iran, attacked Israel on 7 October, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage in the Gaza Strip, the enclave they control. Around half of those hostages remain in the Strip.
The hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah have subsequently reached their worst since they went to war in 2006. Hezbollah says it will only cease fire when Israel’s offensive on Gaza stops.
Israeli strikes have killed around 350 Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon and more than 100 civilians, including medics, children and journalists.
Israel says 23 civilians have been killed in Hezbollah attacks since October, along with at least 17 soldiers. Meanwhile, thousands of Palestinians fled a community in the central Gaza Strip on Monday in the face of new Israeli evacuation orders, worsening the humanitarian plight in an area already inundated with displaced people fleeing an assault in the south.
Hamas has accused Israel of blocking a ceasefire, saying Netanyahu’s government has inserted new conditions into a longstanding truce proposal at the latest talks, conducted through international mediators.
Elsewhere in Israel, members of the far-right attempted to storm the Sde Teiman detention facility where Palestinian prisoners have been held after the military said it had taken nine soldiers for questioning following allegations of “substantial abuse” of detainees.
The nine soldiers have been accused of leaving one detainee “in a very serious condition” three weeks ago. A tenth soldier who was not on the premises also has an arrest warrant issued for them.
Israeli media reported that military police officers who arrived at Sde Teiman in southern Israel to detain the soldiers were met with protests and scuffles.
Later, dozens of protesters who had come to show support for the soldiers burst through the facility's gate, waving Israeli flags and chanting "shame".
After the military cleared the protesters, several hundred of them broke into the military base where the nine soldiers were taken for questioning. Video showed a swarm of people scuffling, pushing and shoving with soldiers in the base.
Some of the protesters were masked and carried guns. Others called through megaphones for the soldiers' immediate release.
